Flexible film packages are well known in the art for storing and shipping products. These flexible film packages can provide a lightweight package with a hermetic seal. A partial or substantial hermetic seal makes such flexible film packages useful for storing a variety of food products, including, for example, crackers, chewing gum, chocolate, cookies, cheese sandwiches, biscuits, candy, meat products, and dried fruits and vegetables, to note but a few options. Further, such flexible film packages may be used for non-food applications, such as medical, pharmaceutical, or industrial packaging applications. Depending on the product, some of these flexible film packages also may contain structural supports, such as a frame or tray, whereas others may only contain the products to be packaged.
One type of flexible film package is formed from a single web of material that is formed or wrapped around a product. These ‘flow-wrap’ type packages (i.e., horizontally or vertically formed packages using a single web of material) are formed by enveloping or wrapping the product with the web of material and forming a longitudinal seal, such as a fin, bottom, or lap seal with two edge portions of the web of material. A pair of end seals may then be formed in the web to form the packages. In other embodiments, packages formed from more than a single web of material and with numerous side-seals can be formed. Because these types of packages can provide hermetically sealed enclosures, they are suitable for packaging food products and other products requiring protection against contamination by moisture, oxygen, and ambient atmosphere.
Flexible film packages have many advantages over other containers. For example, flexible film packages may be manufactured at a substantially lower cost than rigid containers and may be substantially lighter in weight, which results in reduced transportation costs. Further, by being comprised of flexible film, such packages do not require the same amount of storage space as rigid containers, which can be particularly beneficial to grocers, pharmacist, and others who stock such products in such packages.
Though the packages are highly desirable for packing and shipping, consumers sometimes have difficulty opening the packages and accessing the contents of the packages. For example, consumers often open such packages by grasping two walls of a package and pulling the two walls apart from one another. Some consumers may cut the flexible film of the package with a scissors to open the package, especially when the consumer has struggled to firmly grasp the package walls or rupture a package seal. Neither of these opening methods, however, are typically resealable or easily reclosable.
In other configurations, opening features such as tear initiation features are incorporated into the film. Consumers have noted limitations with some of these tearing initiation features as well. For example, some tear initiation features provide unreliable tear propagation and require accurate registration during package formation to be useful. These tear initiation features also are typically not resealable or easily reclosable.
Package opening features that may be incorporated into resealable or reclosable packages may include adhesive-free or adhesive-deadened tabs on the face of the package, disposed a distance away from a package end- or side-seal. For example, resealable packages may have a sealing layer or label with an adhesive-free portion that may be manually grasped and lifted by a consumer to provide access to the package contents. Many consumers have not been particularly quick to recognize the adhesive-free or adhesive-deadened grasping portions on the face of the packages, and thus, such packages sometimes include a notice near package end- or side-seals instructing consumers not to pull and rupture the end- or side-seal, but instead to locate the grasping portion on the face of the package to open the resealable opening.